The U.S. Department of Agriculture Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS) and Missouri NRCS offices awarded Conservation Innovation Grants to the Environmental Resources Coalition and Geosyntec Consultants for two projects aimed at introducing water quality trading concepts in Missouri.
The Metropolitan St. Louis Sewer District (MSD) embarked on a $5-7 Billion program of infrastructure/capital improvements to protect public health and comply with a federal consent decree to address combined and sanitary sewer overflows. MSD provides wastewater and stormwater operations for 1.4 million people in 524 square miles of the City of St. Louis and St. Louis County.MSD operates and maintains approximately 2,980 miles of stormwater, 4,750 miles of sanitary, and 1,920 miles of combined sewers; 194 sanitary and 66 combined sewer pump stations; and nine wastewater treatment facilities typically treating a total of 350 million gallons a day (MGD). MSD had historically monitored the water quality information of streams and rivers within its service area. Stream discharge and water quality data have been collected at numerous locations since 1996 under a cooperative agreement between MSD and the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) and MSD conducted its own in-house monitoring of streams. These programs were intended to help MSD develop stormwater management strategies and improve the St. Louis County Storm Water Management Plan. The consent decree added the requirement of sampling to determine the effectiveness of sanitary and combined sewer overflow projects. MSD needed better high quality data collection services with the value-added benefit of a data management system capable of addressing key project objectives and management decisions.
The City of Columbia, Missouri sought to upgrade and expand the City's regional wastewater treatment plant capacity from 20.6 million gallons per day (MGD) to 25.2 MGD. The treatment plant consists of an activated sludge mechanical plant followed by a 4-unit, 23-cell constructed treatment wetlands for additional removal of biochemical oxygen demand (BOD) and total suspended solids (TSS). The treatment wetlands system has been in operation since 1994. Geosyntec, in coordination with Black and Veatch Engineers, conducted an assessment of the treatment wetlands to confirm if an upgrade to the wetlands system needed to be included in the plant expansion project. The City also wanted to verify the extent to which natural attenuation of bacteria and ammonia was occurring through the wetlands system. These data would be used to predict bacteria density and ammonia concentrations in the expanded plant effluent for comparison to Missouri water quality criteria.
The Missouri Department of Natural Resources (MDNR) identified science-based policy analysis as a key administrative objective following a Federal review of Missouri's Water Quality Standards Program in 2000. U.S. EPA Region 7 selected the Environmental Resources Coalition (ERC) to administer an Ecological Water Resources and Assessment Project (EWRAP) grant to assist MDNR in developing a science-oriented approach. ERC selected Geosyntec to be the lead technical consultant for ERC and MDNR.
The City of Blue Springs (City) is in need of additional infrastructure to accommodate growing wastewater needs as development progresses around the Kansas City metropolitan area. To accommodate anticipated growth, the City is planning an expansion and upgrade to their current wastewater treatment facility (WWTF), which discharges into Sni-A-Bar Creek. Perennial reaches of Sni-A-Bar Creek are included in Missouri's impaired waters list due to low dissolved oxygen (DO) concentrations. Geosyntec and agency scientists believed that Sni-A-Bar Creek did not attain statewide DO criteria naturally during summer conditions as a result of shallow depths, high residual sediment oxygen demand, low reaeration, and transient stagnant features such as beaver dams and backwater areas. To permit expansion of a WWTF that discharges to impaired reaches, state regulatory policies require intensive water quality study and evaluation of attainable conditions. HDR | Archer Engineers retained Geosyntec on behalf of the City of Blue Springs to evaluate water quality conditions within this basin, develop site-specific dissolved oxygen targets, and perform water quality modeling to assist in wastewater planning and permitting efforts.
The Metropolitan St. Louis Sewer District (MSD) awarded Geosyntec a multi-year contract to collect surface water samples at six urban stream and eight large river ambient water quality monitoring stations to characterize baseflow and wet weather water quality conditions. As part of MSD's compliance monitoring and combined sewer overflow (CSO) remediation programs, Geosyntec collects monthly samples per station that includes both baseflow and storm flow conditions. In addition to the ongoing water quality monitoring effort, Geosyntec has developed a water quality database to store new and existing water quality data that will allow analyzing these data for trends and to identify any potential regulatory issues.
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